Overcoming the “Impossible”

WHO would ever think of finding room for a whale in a sardine can? Perhaps what might have appeared to be a problem of equal proportion confronted Jehovah’s witnesses as they prepared for their 1950 convention at Yankee Stadium. Some 75,000 conventioners were going to want beds to sleep on. New York city was already overcrowded. The housing shortage was acute. People were stacked up in apartment houses like eggs in crates.

The Convention Bureau and the Hotel Association volunteered to help by accommodating some 25,000 conventioners, but where were the other 50,000 and more going to sleep? This meant that thousands of Jehovah’s witnesses spent many thousands of hours hunting rooms for their visiting brothers. Beginning on May 13 one of the greatest stair-climbing and door-knocking campaigns of the city’s history began in search for neat, clean rooms. Most of the homes in the city of New York were called on twice, and some three and four times.

All of this added up to a tremendous amount of work. But Jehovah’s blessing was there. In ten short weeks more than 35,000 accommodations in private homes were obtained. This, plus the hotel rooms, plus the trailer camp, provided adequate resting places for those who enjoyed one of the greatest conventions in the history of the world.

The coming 1953 assembly, July 19-26, calls for a repeating of the same, and it began April 26 on a greater scale. We have every reason to believe that by the time July 19 arrives each one will have received an accommodation of his choice. For overcoming these seeming “impossibilities” all credit, thanks and praise go to Jehovah, who can make all things possible.